About the event

Following the popular event: “Your place in the workplace”; BookMachine and Unite are back – this time, with a panel discussion around ‘Pay and Conditions’ with a range of experts in the field.

The aim of the evening is to review the current position of workers in the UK publishing industry, together with insight into the power of collective bargaining in a number of publishing houses.

The event will kick-off with keynote speaker Owen Jones (The Guardian). After this, our panel with Tania Hummel (former Global HR Director at MacMillan Science and Education) and Simon Dubbins (Director of International and Research for UNITE the Union in the UK) will discuss the topic, followed by a Q&A from the audience.

“The BookMachine/Unite event was a useful introduction to the valuable role trade unions play in publishing and journalism. It made me more aware of my rights and enthusiastic about improving working conditions within the industry.”

Anna Cunnane, Export Sales Manager, Kyle Books

Keynotes

Owen Jones was born in Sheffield and grew up in Stockport. After graduating, he worked as a trade union and parliamentary researcher. He is a columnist at the Guardian and formerly at the Independent, and the author of Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class. His new book, The Establishment – And How They Get Away With It, was published in September 2014. He was the winner of the 2012 Stonewall Journalist of the Year and 2013 Political Book Awards Young Writer of the Year. He is now working on his third book, The Politics of Hope.

Will Hutton is a British political economist, writer, weekly newspaper columnist and former editor-in-chief for The Observer. His best-known book is probably “The State We’re In”, which was seen at the time as setting the scene for the Blair revolution. Since then he has published a number of successful political titles, His most recent book, “How Good We Can Be” published in February 2015, reached number 3 in the Guardian best-seller list.

The speakers

Tania Hummel is an executive coach and board-level HR professional. She has worked in HR for almost 20 years and was most recently Global HR Director for Macmillan Science and Education during a period of considerable change where she had strategic and operational accountability for over 5000 employees in over 50 markets.

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Simon Dubbins is Director of International and Research for UNITE the Union in the UK. Simon has worked for the Graphical Paper and Media Union, was the Head of International for AMICUS and the Director of International & Research for UNITE. He now coordinates the European and International work of UNITE across all its sectors.

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Photo credit: Jess Hurd

Michelle Stanistreet is the first woman in NUJ’s history to be elected general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (UK and Ireland). Prior to this, Michelle worked as a journalist for 10 years at the Sunday Express newspaper as feature writer and books editor.

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Kathy Rooney is Non-Executive Director of Librios Ltd, a publishing software company, and Mentor of entrepreneurial start-ups at Accelerate Cambridge (University of Cambridge Judge Business School). Previously she was Managing Director of Bloomsbury Information, having been a senior director of Bloomsbury Publishing. She won the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize for achievement by women in publishing.

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The evening will be hosted by Gareth Lowe. Gareth is the Chair of Unite’s National Publishing and Media Branch and works as Publishing Programme Manager for DK, part of Penguin Random House. A committed trade unionist with over a decade of publishing experience, he is passionate about worker’s rights and interested in the progress of the industry as a whole.